Month: November 2016

Maryland birders have been excited about Snow Buntings for the past week or so. They are not frequent visitors to our area, so when someone spotted four Snow Buntings along the pier at North Point State Park east of Baltimore, local birders began visiting the park in a steady stream to get a look at them.

All birds need water. If you make sure it is available to them year-round, you’ll find that it can be as much of an attraction as putting out seed or suet. In fact, birds that might have no interest in eating at a feeder may come to visit your yard if there is water available. Providing water when the temperatures dip into freezing levels, requires some adjustments, but it isn’t hard.

I have several birdbaths in my yard year-round. All except one are either right on the ground or very close to the ground. The final one is on a fairly low table on my front porch. While the birds seem to love these ground birdbaths, the cats in the neighborhood see them as an opportunity to hunt, so I set up a simple “all natural” birdbath defense a month or so ago that seems to be working very well.